MISSING THE POINT!

Apr 12, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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I have looked at certain responses to statements made by the head of the Presidential Secretariat concerning the militarization of one political party in Guyana. Those responses have unfortunately been very superficial.
They have missed the gravamen of the issue at hand. Instead of zeroing in on this central issue, the responses have generally careened and found refuge in asserting an unquestionable right: the right of veterans to pursue a vocation when their military days were over.
No one has ever questioned that right. The right to work or pursue a career after leaving the barracks was never the gravamen of the issue under discussion. No one has ever questioned the right of veterans to earn a living. Indeed, many retired members of the military and the police have found employment within the State machinery.
The defence of the right to work is however not unusual in such circumstances. In fact it has becomes quite overused as a means to circumvent the substantial question.
Many years ago when a former Chancellor of the Judiciary retired and later took up appointment as the Attorney General of Guyana there were concerns that this movement from the judicial arm to the executive arm of the State set a bad precedent for the independence and image of the judiciary.
The same concerns were again present, but not as robustly protested, when the PPPC took a former member of the Elections Commission and made that person the Attorney General of Guyana; and later when another person was admitted to the Bench after having served as a government minister.
There was no issue at hand in all of these cases about the right to work. No one said that a retired member of the bench should not be entitled to work. The issue was the much larger concern about the implications of such a precedent for the image of the judiciary.
Again when at one time, four retired judges in Guyana went into private practice, there was equally a concern about the implications of such a move. The then Guyana Bar Association, while asserting that it respected the right of retired judges to earn a living, pointed to the hallowed tradition of retired judges not returning to practice at the Bar.
This led to a rejoinder which essentially reasserted the right of persons to pursue careers after retirement, a point that did not address the fundamental issue which was the precedent that was being set and its implications for the image and independence of an important institution of the State, the judiciary.
The issue at stake in Guyana today revolves around the fact that at present a large number of senior ex-military officers have found their way into the leadership of a political party in Guyana. In fact, never before has there been this degree of top-level penetration into a political party by persons who held high rank within both the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force.
This is not an issue about the right to work. This is not an issue about persons not being free to pursue careers after the military days are over. This is an issue about the implications of this degree of involvement by ex-members of the Disciplined Services, particularly the implications for institutions concerned with security and defence.
Today, I will restrict my comments strictly to that of the military. The central concern, the gravamen of the issue, concerning the presence of retired military personnel within a political party in Guyana is not about the right of those veterans to pursue a career outside of the military. It is about the implications of such a decision on military-civilian relationships. This is the gravamen of the issue that most commentators have avoided.
In democracies, the military is supposed to be subservient to civilian rule. The precinct of politics is not supposed to be trespassed on by serving members of the military. Militaries stay within their barracks and allow control of the affairs of the State to be undertaken by civilians.  This division is the basis of military- civilian relationship in democratic countries.
There is no breach of this relationship by virtue of the fact that ex-military officers are now within the leadership of APNU. This much I want to make clear. But what is happening sets a dangerous precedent that has serious implications for military-civilian relationship.
I will deal with three of these implications. The first is the possible militarization of politics. The second is the possible politicization of the military. The third implication is the likely impact on development priorities of a de facto veterans’ party coming to power. I will discuss these three implications in a subsequent column.

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